10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

There are few sights more wrenching to a wildlife rehabilitator than a convulsing, lead-poisoned bird. In what some might see as an unlikely alliance, wildlife rehabilitators, veterinarians, and – yes – hunters have banded together to convince those who hunt to use copper bullets instead of lead.

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Hunters Wildlife Rehabilitation Hunting Legislation 174

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 7, 2016

Years ago, I became a wildlife volunteer and advocate because of a cat who caught a bird. The wildlife center was an hour away if I was lucky. Back then, I didn’t know enough about birds, but I knew a lot about cats. I surprised her and she dropped the bird before vaporizing again. I scrambled for a box.

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Cats Stray Cat Stray Wildlife Rehabilitation 204

10,000 Birds

JULY 15, 2016

You rush over to investigate, and there are birds in your fireplace. Chimney Swifts are remarkable birds who are having a harder and harder time finding brick chimneys in which to nest and raise their families. These fabulous birds fly all the way to South America for the winter, then return in the spring.

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Sanctuary Birds Connecticut 128

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

This guest blog was written by Debbie Souza-Pappas, the director and founder of Second Chance Wildlife Rehabilitation in Price, Utah. It seemed whoever set the trap had ‘released’ the injured eagle upon finding him, as the bird could not have freed himself without the loss of the entire foot. This was going to be a tough case.

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Eagles Wildlife Rehabilitation Utah Vet 138

10,000 Birds

MAY 23, 2013

There were snakes everywhere, they must have eaten his family!”. I called my wildlife rehabilitator friend Maggie Ciarcia, who, yes, has rehabbed baby wild mice before. Once a week I hike into the woods and leave them for the multi-generational family of Common Crows I’ve raised and released over the years. Eyes closed.

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Mice Wildlife Rehabilitation Wildlife Family 168

10,000 Birds

MAY 4, 2012

This story comes from Emily Johnson, who is a sub-permittee for a licensed wildlife rehabilitator in Helena, Montana. Not all injured birds end up winging their way back home again, which is the sad but true part of wild bird rehabilitating. Such was the case with Russell A.

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Montana Compassion Rescue 187

10,000 Birds

MARCH 8, 2013

The upside of rehabbing Turkey Vultures is they’re smart, funny, cool, fascinating birds. She made the 10 or 14 calls it usually takes to find a wildlife rehabilitator, finally finding me. The downside is sometimes they’ll bite you and throw up on you. It’s a small price to pay. He won’t be gone for long!”

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Soreing Turkey Suffering 190

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 8, 2013

When the wolf is at the door, a wildlife rehabilitator will let him in. Jodi Swenson is a bird rehabber in Gloucester, MA. When my bird rehabbing memoir came out in 2009, HarperCollins sent me on a New England book tour. Jodi, who I’d never met, didn’t have any education birds, but showed up anyway. And feed him.

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Rescue Wildlife Rehabilitation Homelessness Wildlife 164

10,000 Birds

MAY 20, 2014

I’d seen pictures of them, of course – the stocky, flamboyantly-beaked little seabirds who always seem to be wearing expressions of sympathetic concern – but I’d never seen one “in bird” (the avian equivalent of “in person”). We want all birds to be bursting with health, and we revel in our rare idle moments.

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Puffins Eggs Wildlife Rehabilitation Bald Eagle 274

10,000 Birds

JANUARY 16, 2015

I have been working in the avian world for 25 years, but last summer I was out-birded by a 14-year-old girl. Each year Hog Island offers programs, taught by a stellar staff of naturalists and artists, to groups of all kinds (teenagers, adults, families). Most “bird-friendly”-labeled coffee is not bird-friendly at all.

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Puffins Birds Groups West Virginia 246

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 18, 2012

Of all the billions of things that keep wildlife rehabilitators from sleeping at night, public releases are one of the big ones. Ideally, we like to release birds where they came from (as long as it’s not a dangerous area), and with as little fanfare as possible. Bird people understand this. In an instant, he was gone.

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Rescue Killing 2012 157

10,000 Birds

MARCH 30, 2012

I like Julie Zickefoose’s art , her writing , her blog , her blog posts here on 10,000 Birds , and, of course, I like birds. So a book about birds by Julie Zickefoose, featuring her writing and art, some of which has been featured in different forms on her blog, is guaranteed to be a hit with me. How could it not be?

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Wildlife Rehabilitation Emotional Woodpeckers Hunting 247

10,000 Birds

MAY 25, 2011

If we can all agree on one thing, it’s that chickadees and tits are terrific birds. Not for nothing did 10,000 Birds readers elect the chickadee as the Most Beloved Backyard Bird of 2008 ; if we had run elections in other years, chickadees would no doubt have been front-runners. It was still alive.

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Seattle Wildlife Rehabilitation Rescue Dogs 204

10,000 Birds

JUNE 3, 2016

That awful sound of a bird hitting a window. This beautiful Northern Flicker hit the window of a Family Dollar store in Beacon, NY. Daniel called his brother, Dylan, who called his friend Skye Horgan, whose mother is a wild bird rehabilitator (me). Do you see how these wildlife rescue stories go? What comes next?

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Rescue Transported Family Wildlife 110

10,000 Birds

MAY 18, 2012

This story comes from Lia Pignatelli, a rehabber with AKUSA Wildlife Rescue in Brewster, NY, who specializes in songbirds. It was six o’clock one June morning, and Lia arrived in her bird nursery room for the first feeding of the day. Was this his real family? All eyes turned to Lia, and the begging began.

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Rescue Family Wildlife Groups 183

10,000 Birds

JULY 20, 2019

— but there is apparently an entire literature about women who adopt wild birds and devote substantial portions of their lives and psyches to those birds thereafter, often for years and, necessarily, to the point of obsession. To readers and to baby birds, its author, Julie Zickefoose, is a treasure.

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Ohio Adoptable Emotional 2019 135

10,000 Birds

NOVEMBER 23, 2012

This lovely tribute to a crow was written by Erin Baker, Animal Care Supervisor & Environmental Educator at Teatown Lake Reservation in Ossining, NY (www.teatown.org) The photos show the lengths dedicated people will go to in order to keep non-releaseable birds happy and entertained.

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illegal Rescue Raised Animal 172

10,000 Birds

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

while Dorothy’s family rushed into the basement. “What should we do?” asked Nance, into the phone. There’s a tornado coming!” Suddenly I heard the farm hand’s voice shout, “It’s a twister, it’s a twister!” And there was this poor little hawk, in the path of an oncoming tornado, but with no Toto to keep him company. Kurt says he can catch him!”

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Mice Squirrels Hunters New York 201